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Reconstruction of the Death Camp (Continued)
The positioning described above was undertaken without reference to the sun illumination directions visible in the ground photo. Note in Figure 37 that the sun angle is very low - less than 10 degrees. Also note that the buildings and the excavator are sunlit on the broadside, which makes the sun's azimuth angle close to 180 degrees (due south) if the orientation shown in Figure 38 Figure 38 is correct. These conditions occur at Treblinka's latitude about noon, local time, in mid to late December and very early January. For example, at the winter solstice, the sun's azimuth and elevation angles are 10 and 186 degrees respectively at noon local time. At the end of November, when the sun is nearly due south, it is twice as high in the sky. By late January, the sun's azimuth has shifted well to the west of due south at 10 degrees elevation. A date of late December is in consonance with the time Franz must have taken the photograph - late 1942 or early 1943.
Of interest are the trees that are absent from the aerial scene. Cremation of the corpses did not start in Treblinka until March 1943. At that time, the excavators began opening the mass graves and lifting out the bodies. The remains were carried to and layered atop the grills by the 'Sonderkommando'. They were then set on fire with wood and brush piled underneath. This obviously required large amounts of firewood. The trees inside the death camp were close at hand. They would have no doubt been the first to be felled for this purpose. The access road must have been in constant use as firewood from outside the death compound was brought in. As Richard Glazar wrote:
"To clear the woods around the perimeter of the camp - that's our main task now. Felled trees are hauled into camp and chopped into firewood ... Idyllic mounds of freshly sawn and split firewood grow up and shine out from among the towering pines that have not been felled. A path runs along one side of the lumberyard and leads up to the main gate of the second camp (i.e. the death camp). Though it is some seventy meters away, the gate is clearly visible from our work site. Here we deliver what wood is needed in that part of the camp. No one from over there is allowed out to work by the SS. The main work in the second camp still consists of digging up and incinerating the bodies from old transports." ( Reference 12, P115)
By the summer of 1943, all the easily obtainable wood would have been consumed. When the camp was finally liquidated, all the trees around the gas chamber proper would have stood in the way of the effort to remove all traces, including foundations. They would have been felled and the stumps removed by the excavators. There is a huge pile of unidentified material at the end of the north arrow in Figure 38. It lies inside the boundaries of the 'Totenlager'. It could be the remains of the trees such as those visible in the ground photo and as described by Richard Glazer when he stood at the gate of the access road gazing south into the death camp:
"The gate to Camp 2 (the 'Totenlager') is opened halfway. The SS order us to bring our bundles in. I cross the boundary into the horrifying factory of death. Everyone here is dressed in rags. Zelo smiles at me in silence. Behind him there is a brick building with a steep roof. This must be the gas chambers. So the pipeline doesn't lead directly to the entrance after all. It stops just short of it. Behind the building, and off to the side, I believe I can see steel rails. Is that the incineration grate?. The sandy surface is firmly packed. There are trees on both sides, forming a kind of boulevard ... Reference 12, P135
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